


Archangels

by Skye_wyr



Series: WI discord - Key challenge [2]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Archangels, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Character Death, Hydra Is Terrible, M/M, Maria was a nice mom, Non-Graphic Violence, heed the tags, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 00:51:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11956269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skye_wyr/pseuds/Skye_wyr
Summary: From an earlier age, Tony's mom had instilled in him a fascination with Archangels. He never really expected to get to see one in real life; then again, Norse gods are real, why wouldn't Archangels?





	Archangels

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shi_Toyu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shi_Toyu/gifts).



> One key challenge some of the people from discord's WI server organized. Key word courtesy of Shi_toyu. If I missed some tags please let me know.

Nowadays celestial bodies have come to a very low point in time. They are messengers and harbingers, even if people don’t pray to them anymore or ask to intercede in their stead or look out for them. Their tasks have not stopped being the same. All archangels are in charge of an aspect. Those who heal, those who bring peace, those that work in forgiveness. The fact that the prayers stopped and that the belief has dwindled doesn’t excuse them from their sacred duties, from the imperative drive they had been created for.

Maria would always send a blessing towards Tony before he left to school when he was little, and the habit remained even when he went to board school, she would always pray for him, entrust him to the archangels to guard and see over him so that he may return safely. She would always finish with a kiss on the crown of his head, sealing her prayer with a kiss. His mother would joke that she needed to ask the archangels to look out after his precious boy, because he was such a handful and got in so much trouble that only they could keep up with him. Tony would sometimes hope he could get to see one or have one take him away when his dad got in one of his moods. 

When he was in Afghanistan, he didn’t pray to God because he stopped believing after her mother died, but the comfort of her mother’s prayers remained and so he prayed to the archangels to look out for Rhodey, Pepper and Yinsen, and sometimes, when he felt particularly bad after a round of waterboarding, for himself. There was nothing to the prayer but the comfort it gave him from fond memories of childhood and his mother. He always felt marginally better afterwards. When Yinsen died but he kept on living, he wondered if this small comfort would go away too after having seen such a good man die. 

For a time, after Obadiah’s betrayal he stopped praying again, but when the lead poisoning began he started praying once again for his friends and himself. For strength and endurance to do what had to be done and hoping that all his arrangements would be enough to weather the storm after he was gone. He would research about archangels and their aspects, about the different shapes and forms of celestial beings. It was something that brought him comfort and made him think of his mother. 

He kept pulling through, over and over again, from situations that a normal person would be hard pressed to survive and continue to live through. Part of him wondered if his mother was right, and it was through divine intercession that he kept pulling through such unlikely scenarios. Specially when you take into account that he went to space and managed to fall back planetside by the skin of this teeth. Norse gods were real, why couldn’t archangels be real too?

After the Extremis and Shield fiasco things quieted down considerably. Cap, Natasha and the new guy were away a lot pursuing some secret mission. Thor was gone on and off, Clint sometimes aided Natasha but he divided his time between family and his other group. After some time they spent less and less time out on missions and more and more time in the tower helping out with villains and local emergencies, sometimes on an international scale too. Like after natural disasters, bombings or collapsing mines. 

There started to be rumours in the middle east about a person that had wings made out of light that was saving people from war zones. The person in question killed all of the guerilla that were tormenting villages and setting them free. There were some blurry images of a golden man with wings made out of light but the shine was so bright you couldn’t identify the person.

Tony tried over and over again to pinpoint the location of this being. They never left any trail so tracking was next to impossible. They seemed to disappear as soon as they were done. The locals took to calling them the “Avenging Angel” or “Archangel Michael”. 

They were battling in Sokovia when the Avenging Angel showed up, surrounded with a light so bright that you couldn’t see them directly. Soaring through the air turning to a crisp robot after robot and lifting civilians and carrying them to safety. There was no way to communicate with them but they seemed to have their job well at hand. Tony was so ecstatic and mourned the fact that they didn’t have the time for an introduction. 

And suddenly they were all gathered around the core, Angel included and everyone was quite awed about this being of light. Tony didn’t lose one second and shot the question that had been nagging him from the beginning. “Are you actually an angel or are you a mutant?”. Steve opened his mouth to object but closed it, considering that they were all quite curious to know. 

“Archangel actually, sort of.” Just about when Steve was about to open his mouth Ultron arrived and it was back to fighting again. 

The Angel helped quite a lot, their wings, despite being made out of light, seemed to be a physical object that deflected bullets quite effectively, proved by saving Clint and the child he was shielding. 

“Thanks man, that was a close one, also thanks for turning down the light and not leaving us blind in the process” Clint said as he looked up to face their saviour and promptly choked. “Barnes?” There was a commotion over the comms as Angel lifted off and went onto incinerating more robots. 

“Clint, did you say Bucky’s name? Are you sure it was him?” Steve’s desperate and incredulous voice could be heard over the comms. 

“Cap, I am as sure that was Barnes as that I almost died via bullet a few seconds ago” Clint’s voice came a bit choppy as he could be heard jogging back to a life boat. 

“So… can someone explain to me why you guys are talking about who I assume is Cap’s best pal? Why does no one sound surprised about the fact he is ALIVE but rather that he SHOWED up? Hell _I_ am shocked he is alive. Anyone? How about the fact he is an archangel?” Tony’s voice was tinged with curiosity and a bit of annoyance. Why was he the only one out of the loop?

“It is a long story shellhead, we promise to brief you if we get out of this rock alive. We didn’t know about the archangel business though.” Natasha’s voice cut in, in what could’ve lead to an epic fight via comms, with great timing because they couldn’t afford getting distracted in this moment. 

“Fine” Tony’s voice was cutting but he bottled his anger and put his mind back in the game, a corner of his mind spiraling about dead people and celestial beings. 

When it came the time to blow up the city everything was chaos, and Tony knew there was a very high possibility that he would not make it being so close to the explosion. So as he was hurtling out of control with debris in every single direction he was not prepared to being held against something solid and encased in light. “Holy shit”.

“I’ve got you” Were the last words Tony heard as they crashed. 

Tony was most definitely not waiting to still be alive or conscious after such a collision. He opened his eyes to a light and the slow deeming of it. Opening his faceplate he looked at the being that saved him and saw the face of a very beautiful glowing man. “Saved by an archangel, you can’t say those words and not be thrown to the loony bin.” His smile was brilliant, he was ecstatic to be face to face to an actual archangel. His happiness outweighed any aches and pains he had. 

“My name is Ya'aqov'el, but you can call me James” The archangel’s smile was strained and a dribble of blood left his mouth and fell on Tony’s cheek. 

Tony’s smile quickly banished when he saw the state James was in. Tony slowly incorporated himself, helping to keep the other with his torso upright. He was pierced through and through with debris and metal. 

“If you are an archangel then… why…?”

“This body was never meant to wield celestial power, it has been slowly consuming it. I am trapped in this body until the day of my death, Hydra was never interested in losing me, no matter how badly injured I was, I was always brought back from the brink. It doesn’t matter, I would much rather die a celestial agent than dying an agent of Hydra. I could've never imagined such a good ending as this.”

James was slowly losing his glow but his eyes were fixed on Tony’s “When your mother was dying she prayed to the archangels to look after you and to keep you safe. Since then, everytime I went under cryo I could look over you and intercede to a certain extent with some help. I forgot all about it every time I was woken up though. My physical body couldn’t handle the celestial knowledge. The mission your mother asked of me kept me going.”

Tony’s mouth was hanging agape, nothing that came out of James mouth was making sense except her mother’s prayer but how? What? Going under? What is he talking about? Hydra?

“So that’s it? You are giving up?” Tony set his jaw. Unwilling and stubborn to let go. He had too many questions.

“It’s not that I want to die, but there is nothing to be done. I’m glad I could do what your mother asked of me Anthony.” James’ wings had disappeared by this point and his skin had a very gentle glow 

“Anthony?”

“It’s what your mother called you,” There was a small twinkle in James’ eye _“That who faces his opponents... Brave…_ I should’ve known. You are a hard charge to take care of Anthony”

“It’s Tony, I think you’ve earned calling me Tony.”

“Tony.” James smiled and slowly his face relaxed and his eyes closed. The glow of his body extinguished and there only remained the body of a man, just like any other.

Tony remained in that position, looking at James until someone came to look for him.

**Author's Note:**

> There _MIGHT_ be an alternate happy ending to this. I'll see at the end of the challenges what I come up with.


End file.
